HANOI, Vietnam—Global architecture and design firm Callison says its most recently completed design, the 65-story, mixed-use tower, Lotte Center Hanoi, opened recently. The tower's dynamic exterior form celebrates the cultural heritage of Vietnam by following the lines of the Vietnamese long-dress, the Ao Dai.

Programmatically, Lotte Center Hanoi is actually two independent towers connected by a series of sky garden atria. Every level throughout the tower has access to expansive communal spaces which serve as high-rise community gardens.
Lotte Center Hanoi is located in the capital city's embassy district and serves as a cultural landmark for visitors and residents alike. The 2 million square foot structure includes serviced residences, office space, a shopping mall and a 5-star hotel with interiors designed by Wilson Associates.

"Lotte Center is an elegant, iconic tower in the new Hanoi skyline and the first sustainably designed high-rise in Vietnam," said Bill Lacey, Callison chief design officer in Los Angeles.
To determine the best sustainable design strategies for Lotte Center Hanoi, Callison employed its proprietary sustainable design tool, Matrix by Callison. The base of the tower was built using high performance, low temperature and low CO2 emitting concrete technology. The geometric insertion of sky garden atria leads to a 70% reduction in electrical lighting use, as compared to a tower without atria. The multistory, full building depth sky gardens provide access to daylight and panoramic city views.
"Sky gardens, within speculatively developed, mixed-use towers, offer unique community spaces and much needed relief in high-density, urban settings," said Matthias Olt, Callison design director in Seattle and the firm's drector of sustainable design. "By incorporating framed garden views in the architecture, they are also a nod to the Vietnamese design vernacular, such as the historic garden houses of Hue." Olt authored a white paper on Lotte Center Hanoi that was shared in September at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's Future Cities Conference in Shanghai.
Founded in 1975, Callison is a global architecture firm specializing in the retail, mixed-use, corporate, hospitality, healthcare, multifamily residential, mission critical and high-rise markets worldwide.